


Kintsugi

by Eshusplayground



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 19:35:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11259546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eshusplayground/pseuds/Eshusplayground
Summary: Kintsugi ("golden joinery") is a Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The process results in something more beautiful than the original. (paraphrased from Wikipedia)





	Kintsugi

Diana first spotted her in the new exhibit tracing the African influences on contemporary European art. She walked from display to display, hovering next to the placard by each work of art. It reminded Diana of a hummingbird, always in motion even when seemingly still. All she needed was a pair of fluttering, iridescent wings.

She noticed Diana first. Thus put on the spot, Diana stumbled through an awkward introduction, fidgeting beneath the visitor’s amused gaze and subtle smile. 

Her name was Sophie. 

Before she could catch herself, Diana told Sophie that her workday wrapped up in a few hours and invited her to a cafe tucked in a hole-in-the-wall spot around the corner from the Louvre. Bracing herself for _I don’t like women that way sorry_ , it took all of her warrior’s resolve not to make some excuse then slink back to her office and try not to brood. By Hades' gloomy kingdom, she was turning into Bruce.

But Sophie said yes—thank Aphrodite—and Diana smiled her first real smile since … it was better not to think of it. With a glad heart, she finished her work, touched up her makeup and hurried to the cafe as fast as she could, heels clacking on the pavement as she strode toward the cafe.

 

Diana didn’t need the Lasso of Hestia to know that Sophie was attracted to her. Though Sophie said nothing of it, it was as plain as the button nose on her face. Diana rather liked the sweet, shy crush Sophie had on her. It was new and strange, something so unlike the predatory leers that so many men gave her. There was a hint of delicacy about it, like a gently fermented wine that didn’t overpower the tongue or the body but teased the senses with a soft, delightful buzz.

Diana was almost certain that, if she asked, Sophie would sleep with her, but there was no way that could happen. Even now, decades after Steve’s death, the pain was still too raw. The closest she could ever get to sharing a bed with Sophie was in those quiet, lonely nights when dreams of poison and fire and death kept her from sleeping, and she touched herself while imagining Sophie’s fingers and lips on her.

This time, when she dozed off, she tossed and turned from dreams of Sophie writhing beneath her while her fingers plunged into her tight, hot core.

 

It happened so slowly that Diana hadn’t noticed until it was almost too late. Like tiny droplets of water eroding stone over thousands of years, tiny moments eroded the shell encasing the softest parts of her, and brief flashes of that woman—that _girl_ —she used to be emerged from behind the glass coffin that contained her heart.

The childlike glee on Sophie’s face when Diana sneaked her into the employees only area of the Louvre to show her new acquisitions before they were displayed for the public.

Sophie’s big, bright smile as they watched fireflies dance on the air one evening at Parc de la Villette, their lights twinkling like greenish yellow stars. 

The sparkle in Sophie’s eyes as they shared a double-scoop ice cream cone and then a chocolate-flavored kiss.

Sophie kneeling before her, eyes lidded and mouth slightly parted, slowly unfastening Diana’s belt as if something new and wonderful waited beneath her slacks.

It was as though, in these precious moments, Sophie filled in the cracks in her heart left by Steve’s demise, and Diana could almost love her as wholeheartedly as she loved him.

Almost, but not quite.

 

Diana was tired. Tired of fighting, tired of beating back the evil of the world only for it to come back stronger and smarter than before, tired of mankind not learning a thing in the century since she’d left home, tired of innocent lives being destroyed for greed, for hate, for pride. But most of all, she was tired of losing the people she loved.

When Eris, goddess of strife and discord, used her power against Sophie, she had known exactly which buttons to push: the fear of abandonment that she never spoke aloud, the resentment at having to share Diana with the memory of a man who’d been dead for over a century, the quiet despair of a romantic soul starved of the love that gave life meaning. In the end, Eris didn’t have to do anything but wait for these seeds of discontent to grow into sprawling weeds of bitterness and hopelessness then bear the near-deadly fruit that brought Sophie to the watchful eye of the Critical Care Unit.

It twisted Diana’s heart to witness how small and fragile Sophie seemed in the hospital bed. The thin blanket covered her sleeping body like a burial shroud. The nurse had said that Sophie needed her rest, so Diana refrained from touching her or speaking to her.

Helplessness tasted bitter in the mouths of even the least proud of the Amazons, but it was her own hubris that had led to this. She had been so desperate to reclaim the love she lost that she didn't see the love she had. She’d never suspected that her quest to the underworld to bring Steve back could’ve been a ruse by Eris to make her drop her guard from the one person she was supposed to protect. Now, Sophie’s life hung in a precarious balance, and there was nothing Diana could say or do about it. 

For the first time in her life, she truly felt a hundred years old. 

 

It had been weeks since the hospital released her, but Sophie had grown distant and elusive, turning away from Diana’s kiss and squirming away from Diana’s touch, and every time Diana asked what was wrong, she shook her head and mumbled, “Nothing.”

Diana would be lying if she said it didn’t sting to be so soundly rejected and shut out, and she’d be lying if she claimed she was never tempted to use the Lasso to compel Sophie to tell her what her problem was, but forcing the truth out of her would only make things worse. So, she opted for patience and restraint, keeping her distance and waiting for Sophie to come to her when she was ready.

She didn’t hear from Sophie for a month. When she finally called, Diana was almost too shocked to answer the phone. Then Sophie asked her if she could come over to her house after work so that they could talk, and Diana was so overjoyed that she’d almost forgotten to say yes.

Hours later, she stood on the porch of Sophie’s apartment building, folding her arms to suppress her jittery nerves while she waited for Sophie to come to the door. Then Sophie opened the door and stood before her, real and alive, not a figment conjured from her imagination. Diana’s heart swelled with such love and longing for her that she felt like she could burst.

They talked over coffee that Sophie poured from her French press. Diana took hers black. Sophie poured cream and sugar into hers, an odd Americanism that sneaked into her Parisian upbringing. It was so adorably Sophie that Diana couldn’t help smiling despite the gravity of the conversation to come.

With great trepidation, Sophie told her of the recurring dream she’d had since they’d first met. In the dream, Sophie was Icarus with arms outstretched on mechanical wings, flying up, up, up toward the sun’s warm, luminous embrace, heedless of heat melting the wax holding her wings together, a brief moment of transcendent joy followed by horror as the wings fell apart, and she plummeted down, down, down into the waves breaking upon the rocks as the radiant, merciless sun shined on.

After Sophie told her this, Diana yearned to reassure her that her touch would not burn the flesh off her bones and that her kiss would not melt the wax holding her psyche together, but the realization that, from Sophie’s point of view, that was precisely what happened stopped the words before they came out her mouth.

How selfish she had been to believe that Sophie could or would or should have been content to be loved with half a heart, which was really not being loved at all. The cruel irony was that it had been Sophie who almost paid the ultimate price for her folly. The real tragedy of it would’ve been that Sophie could have died not knowing that Diana felt nothing like the glorious sun, remote and unfazed, but like poor, anguished Daedalus, helpless and heartbroken.

Diana stood from her chair and stepped toward Sophie, who sat primly in her seat. She leaned forward, gently cupping Sophie’s face in her hands. Sophie’s soft, dark eyes went wide then slid closed as Diana placed delicate kisses on Sophie’s forehead, cheeks and lips. Each kiss was a silent promise that Sophie would never have reason to doubt her love for her ever again.

This time, Sophie didn’t pull away.

 

Something had changed in Diana following the tête-à-tête she had with Sophie. It happened so subtly that Diana hadn’t even been aware of it until the day that she looked at the photograph of Steve and her friends, and instead of the sharp pang of grief, felt a soft, warm fondness for them. This time, she didn’t wonder what sort of life she and Steve would have had if they’d had the time he’d wished for. This time, she wondered what it would have been like for Sophie to meet the friends she’d made in the Great War and what words of hope and wisdom they would impart if they could.

“Speak to her words of love and devotion, and tell her she’s beautiful everyday,” Samir said, speaking to her from whatever afterlife he’s in through depths of memory.

“Tell her that her ancestors are with her always, and that they smile upon your union,” said Napi, materializing in her mind from the spirit world, young and strong as he had been when she met him.

“Give the wee lass a big, wet kiss and tell her it’s from me,” said Charlie, taking a huge swig of whiskey followed by hiccups and drunken laughter.

Diana imagined Samir rolling his eyes and asking how the hell he managed to get booze in the afterlife, to which Charlie would shrug and drink some more before tearing into a loud, off-key song with bawdy lyrics.

“Have faith in her. Show her that she can do anything she puts her mind to. ‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll bloody well haunt you, you daft woman,“ said Etta, punching her in the arm with a ghost-fist.

“Needs a new battery,” Steve said, but unlike the others, his voice came from outside her, almost as if he were standing right there next to her. Then Diana saw him.

Steve stood at her desk, bent over the watch, blue eyes twinkling with mirth. As she watched him, time felt like it rolled back, and she was her old self again.

“Steve,” she said. How she missed him!

Steve stood straight up and looked at her. A smile tugged at his lips as he gestured toward the watch.

“Damn shame to keep it locked up, though,” he said, “Why don’t you give it to your, uh, lady friend?”

What did he mean? What did Sophie have to do with this? Diana opened her mouth to ask him, but before she could say anything, he was gone.

 

In the soft light of Sophie’s bedroom, Diana and Sophie created love poetry upon each other’s flesh. Outside, cars sped down the street, the people inside them oblivious to the seismic tremors erupting only two stories above. Steve’s watch, now Sophie’s watch, ticked with new life on the bedside table.

Diana lay gentle, open-mouthed kisses all over Sophie’s naked skin. Beneath her, Sophie gasped and moaned to even the lightest of Diana’s touches. How marvelously responsive she was! How subtle and textured her expressions of pleasure! Diana loved it when Sophie was like this, for it was in this pliant state that Sophie’s inhibitions would fall away, revealing Sophie as she truly was: sensual, passionate, divine.

Within the blink of an eye, Sophie grabbed her, flipped her onto her back and kissed her roughly from her lips to her chest to her belly to her—oh, gods! Sophie dived between Diana’s legs, licking and sucking with abandon. Jolts of pleasure passed through her, powerful as Zeus’ thunderbolts. Then Sophie slipped her fingers inside, applying intense pressure directly upon that sweet spot inside her. Cries of rapture tore out of Diana’s throat.

Between climaxes, she glanced down to see how Sophie was faring, purring in satisfaction at the sight of Sophie drinking deeply between her thighs. Something raw and primal within Diana awakened, and it vowed that before this night was over, Sophie would quiver with ecstasy in her arms.

 

Diana woke up late Sunday morning still wrapped in the honey-gold light of the afterglow. From the corridor, she heard a toilet flush, and Sophie staggered into the bedroom a few minutes later. Her T-shirt showed a drawing of a pink-haired girl in a black uniform brandishing a sword. It rested just above her thighs, offering a tantalizing peek at what lay between them. Diana chuckled, remembering the night before.

“Why did you cover up?” she asked.

Sophie rubbed the sleep from her eye and yawned. Voice groggy, she said, “You stole the blankets, and I got cold.”

“Come, beloved. I will be your blanket,” said Diana, scooting over and patting the empty space on the bed beside her. Sophie grinned sleepily, climbed into bed and curled up next to her. True to her word, Diana hooked an arm and a leg around her and snuggled close. The aroma of their lovemaking still clung to her, stoking the embers of Diana’s arousal ever so minutely. They would join bodies again before nightfall, but for now, rest.

They dozed for a few hours. Sometime that afternoon, Diana stirred as she felt Sophie turn in her sleep, finger absently twirling in her hair as though even as she slumbered, she couldn’t get enough of Diana. The simple gesture of trust and affection filled Diana with pure joy, as did the feeling of Sophie’s big, soft heart beating against her chest in time with the ticking of the watch.

With that last conscious thought, Diana drifted to sleep with a smile and dreamed of flying.


End file.
